Response to 9/11 Offers Outline of McCain Doctrine8/17/2008 6:43:54 AMBy David D. Kirkpatrick of the NY TimesBefore turning the article over for your viewing, I’d like to make a few personal comments. First of all, John McCain denies that he’s a warmonger. However, he once made the statement that this war on terrorism could last 100 years. After that statement I alluded to the religious wars of old that often lasted the same amount of time, if not longer. As we’ve discovered by now, most of the wars fought by terrorists are either caused by disputes over sought for control or religion.

Take the following quote by a member of McCain’s family that proves McCain’s military upbringing. “To quote Sherman, war is all hell and we need to fight it out and get it over with and that is when the killing stops,” recalled Joe McCain, Senator McCain’s younger brother.

However, as I see it, the killing will never stop until the last of America’s troops’ returns home with a flag draped over his/her casket. Now McCain is calling for American peacekeepers to patrol the area between Russia and Georgia. I knew it was only a matter of time before we got into that feud. We have peacekeepers all over the world—American troops that should be home with their families and not acting as bodyguards destined to stop the bullets between opposing factions with their bodies. Enough said.

Here’s the article verbatim.

Quote `Within hours after the 9/11 attacks, John McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

`“There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked,” Mr. McCain said the next morning(the day after 9/11) on ABC News. “It isn’t just Afghanistan,” he added, on MSNBC. “I don’t think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared,” he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East.

`Within a month he made clear his priority. “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: “Next up, Baghdad!”

`Now, as Mr. McCain prepares to accept the Republican presidential nomination, his response to the attacks of Sept. 11 opens a window onto how he might approach the gravest responsibilities of a potential commander in chief. Like many, he immediately recalibrated his assessment of the unseen risks to America’s security. But he also began to suggest that he saw a new “opportunity” to deter other potential foes by punishing not only Al Qaeda but also Iraq.

`To his admirers, Mr. McCain’s tough response to Sept. 11 is at the heart of his appeal. They argue that he displayed the same decisiveness again last week in his swift calls to penalize Russia for its incursion into Georgia, in part by sending peacekeepers to police its border.

`His critics charge that the emotion of Sept. 11 overwhelmed his former cool-eyed caution about deploying American troops without a clear national interest and a well-defined exit, turning him into a tool of the Bush administration in its push for a war to transform the region.

`“He has the personality of a fighter pilot: when somebody stings you, you want to strike out,” said retired Gen. John H. Johns, a former friend and supporter of Mr. McCain who turned against him over the Iraq war’. END QUOTE